Doomed Seacor crew told to sail into deadly Gulf storm, captain’s widow says in lawsuit

The widow of the Seacor Power’s captain is accusing the doomed lift boat’s owner of ordering the captain and his crew to sail into stormy conditions before its deadly capsizing in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this month.

Yvette Ledet, wife of Capt. David Ledet, made the allegation in a lawsuit which she filed Wednesday at the federal courthouse in New Orleans. It contradicts an earlier public statement from the CEO of Seacor Marine Holdings Inc., owner of the ill-fated vessel, who asserted that the decision to depart from Port Fourchon on April 13 was “entirely the captain’s.”

Yvette Ledet’s suit accuses Seacor Marine and Talos Energy, the operator of the offshore oil platform where the Power was headed, of negligence. She demanded an unspecified amount of damages for various reasons, including emotional pain and suffering.

The 234-foot Seacor Power turned over two weeks ago as it headed for a Talos oil platform east of Venice, La. The vessel was headed into an area that forecasters warned would be experiencing tropical storm-force winds and dangerous waves. But the hurricane-force winds and destructive waves which the vessel ultimately ran into were much more intense than anticipated.

Rescuers saved six of the Seacor Power’s 19 crewmen the day it capsized. The bodies of another six — including that of David Ledet — have been recovered, and the seven remaining crewmen remained unaccounted for as of Thursday.

Yvette Ledet’s lawsuit recounts how her husband, of Thibodaux, was attempting to help save others when he “was thrown into the sea.” Though “he fought for his life,” his body was recovered the next day with “severe burns and other debilitating injuries,” said the suit, which didn’t offer an exact cause for the wounds cited.

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This story was originally published April 29, 2021 at 4:45 PM.